Subscribe to this blog

Receive Updates by Email

Search This Blog

Posts

By 2050, it will take 100 billion land animals to provide the world's population with meat, dairy, eggs and leather goods. Maintaining this herd will take a huge, potentially unsustainable toll on the planet. What if there were a different way? In this eye-opening talk, tissue engineering advocate Andras Forgacs argues that biofabricating meat and leather is a civilized way to move past killing animals for hamburgers and handbags.
Andras Forgacs produces animal products -- meat and leather -- without the animal. Full bio »

Dinner Is Printed
By A. J. JACOBS - New York Times
THE hype over 3-D printing intensifies by the day. Will it save the world? Will it bring on the apocalypse, with millions manufacturing their own AK-47s? Or is it all an absurd hubbub about a machine that spits out chintzy plastic trinkets? I decided to investigate. My plan: I would immerse myself in the world of 3-D printing. I would live for a week using nothing but 3-D-printed objects — toothbrushes, furniture, bicycles, vitamin pills — in order to judge the technology’s potential and pitfalls.
I approached Hod Lipson, a Cornell engineering professor and one of the nation’s top 3-D printing experts, with my idea. He thought it sounded like a great project. It would cost me a mere $50,000 or so.
Unless I was going to 3-D print counterfeit Fabergé eggs for the black market, I’d need a Plan B.
Which is how I settled on the idea of creating a 3-D-printed meal. I’d make 3-D-printed plates, forks, place mats, napkin rings, candlesticks —…

Hip Star Wars neckties add Force and flair to your suits
Sometimes you want to wear something that's geeky, but a bit more subtle than a fan t-shirt. These Star Wars neckties let you show off your Imperial (or Rebel) allegiance while still remaining stylish.
Currently, these silk ties are available only through Kotobukiya in Japan for ¥ 5,040 (around $50.72 USD). No word on whether we'll be seeing them in North American shops, or when we'll be seeing a TIE Fighter necktie. Star Wars Narrow Tie [Kotobukiya via Fashionably Geek] 12

MIA-Made in USA. Matthew Burnett an interned that I managed during my time at Fossil left the company excited to start his own product line in his hometown of Detroit. He got his first major order but was completely unaware of the complexities of overseas production. Most of his shipment arrived to the states late or defective completely destroying his business. His failure inspired him to join up with other like-minded individuals to launch a website giving designers easy access US manufactures. http://makersrow.com/TATIANA GARCIA T. SENIOR DESIGNER 200 BROADACRES BLOOMFIELD, NJ, 07003 T: 1 + 973.873.9618 WWW.RANDA.NET

Imagining what is next for PoetryA year ago my wife Anneli and I, set out with a goal to give poetry mobility and make it fun to write with friends. We aim to help engage young communities to spend time with creative writing, and what better way than with a mobile app. Tap our app and create your own Poetry Slam with friends. Share poems to your public book for others to rate. Each day we feature the Poem with the highest points. Press play and receive 3 random words that you can choose to write solo or a create a multi-player Poetry Slam. With social media it is easier than ever to get the recognition you deserve as a poet. Share your poems with the world via Facebook, Twitter or more intimately through SMS.

Poetry, it serves our innate need to explain ourselves and the world we live in. The words we string together into poems articulate and frame experiences. Poetry is a resource that leads you to unlock your imagination, plus it will help to improve …

When Complexity Is Free By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN NISKAYUNA, N.Y. — IT’S easy to be depressed about America these days. We’ve got messes aplenty abroad and the Republican-dominated House of Representatives is totally paralyzed. Indeed, the G.O.P.-led House has become a small-minded, parochial place, where collaboration is considered treason, where science is considered a matter of opinion, where immigration is considered a threat, where every solution is a suboptimal compromise enacted at midnight and where every day we see proof of the theory that America is a country that was “designed by geniuses so that it could be run by idiots.” Fortunately, there is another, still “exceptional,” American reality out there. (I am talking to you, Putin.) It’s best found at the research centers of any global American company. These centers are places where scientists and engineers from dozens of nationalities are using collaboration and crowd-sourcing to push out the boundaries of medical, manufacturing …

Pleated Trousers – A Resurging Trend?
To pleat or not to pleat? That is the sartorial question.
Despite the everyday male’s natural aversion to pleated trousers and the continued preference of straight, slim-cut, flat-fronted styles by the industry as a whole, it seems that pleats are back with a vengeance. For both SS13 and AW13 – and extending as far as SS14 – the pleat has made its presence felt on the runways whilst subtly stamping its mark on current high street collections.
However, with the world of menswear now fully accustomed to skinny and slim-fit trousers, where cut and silhouette is key – is men’s fashion ready for the return of the pleat?
Read more... http://www.fashionbeans.com/2013/mens-aw13-fashion-trend-pleated-trousers/

The Short Sentence as Gospel Truth
By ROY PETER CLARKDraft is a series about the art and craft of writing.
TAGS:READING AND WRITING SKILLS (EDUCATION),WRITING AND WRITERS
As a writer and teacher, I try to learn something about the craft every day. A gold coin of inspiration may come in my reading, in a conversation with another writer or even in the process of revising this essay.
I learned an important lesson, somewhat unwittingly, on July 19, 1975, while watching an interview with two of my favorite writers, William F. Buckley Jr. and Tom Wolfe. Mr. Wolfe was making fun of an art critic who had begun an essay with the sentence “Art and ideas are one.”
“Now, I must give him credit for this,” said Mr. Wolfe. “If you ever have a preposterous statement to make … say it in five words or less, because we’re always used to five-word sentences as…

In a Breathtaking First, NASA’s Voyager 1 Exits the Solar SystemFly High - DJK
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Since the launch of the Voyager spacecraft in 1977, Voyager 1 has traveled over 11.7 billion miles from the launchpad pictured here. That is equivalent to traveling to the moon and back almost 25,000 times.
By BROOKS BARNES
Published: September 12, 2013 379 Comments